Apologies for the lack of blogging -- been spending a ton of time in Taipei this week. Much to report....Speaking of Taipei, the NYTimes has an article on Taipei as a travel destination (hat tip to reader JS).
TAIPEI, the vibrant capital of Taiwan, distills the best of what Asian cities have to offer — great street food, crackling night life, arguably the world’s best collection of Chinese art, and hot springs and hiking trails reachable by public transport. With interest in mainland China surging, Taipei — one of the most underrated tourist destinations in Asia — offers a look at a different side of China, one that escaped the deprivations of early Communist rule and the Cultural Revolution. Here is a Chinese culture (some contend that it is uniquely Taiwanese) that practices bare-knuckled democracy and has preserved traditions thousands of years old in a way that was impossible to do on the mainland.
Even ten years ago, would a travel article have noted the "uniquely Taiwanese" point of view? That's progress, guys. I wish articles on travel here were less Taipei-focused. Taipei's certainly great, but it is very unrepresentative of Taiwan. The Beautiful Island has plenty of other interesting sites and people who treat outsiders absolutely wonderfully. Now if only sit toilets were widely available....
Also speaking of Taipei, the global monopoly edition rankings have changed, and Taipei is now #2! My friend writes:
The original post is here.I notice that the wildcard cities vote is now happening on the Monopoly website and Taipei is second in the running behind Quebec. AND I note that you can vote and revote everyday for the next 8 days!
News from the capital: spoke to some Green party people this weekend who told me that the Green Party was considering a "fei piao" campaign -- a campaign to get the public to cast invalid ballots in the presidential election as a protest vote. The small parties, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the Green Party, were unable to work together to propose a joint candidate for the Presidency and organize a protest vote, a valid response to the big parties, and an affirmation of the democratic system. But invalid votes are, at least in this case, inherently anti-democracy (they do nothing to build the system) and in this case, where a Hsieh victory will depend on turnout and a lower invalid vote count, an invalid vote is a vote for Ma Ying-jeou. You don't reform democratic systems by getting the anti-democracy side into power, and you don't reform the system by declaring it invalid. And if you aren't organized enough to get your own candidate on the ballot, you can hardly complain about the other parties! I pray that the Greens and TSU will strongly support Hsieh in Presidential campaign.
Speaking of the TSU, the Chinese papers were reporting that the Sec Gen of the TSU will support the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou. Recall that the TSU came out of the KMT, and that whatever its political positions, its voter base is a mix of Blue and Green voters.
[Taiwan]
If the Green Party has any integrity, it won't support the candidate of a party that just, according to another post here, approved of a coal plant that will increase Taiwan's CO2 emissions by 40%.
ReplyDeleteAnyway the Green Party is so small that whatever it says will not make much of a difference either way.
"I wish articles on travel here were less Taipei-focused. Taipei's certainly great, but it is very unrepresentative of Taiwan."
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would be nice if there were more articles that looked beyond Taipei, but I don't completely agree that Taipei is very unrepresentative of Taiwan. I would prefer to say that it represents one aspect of Taiwan, one part of the whole, but in my view it has a lot in common with other areas of the beautiful island--similar foods, religious practices, customs. You can't tell me that a walk around Wanhua is not somehow a uniquely Taiwanese experience. Now, there are certain practices you will notice in the south which are not visible in Taipei or in the north in general. For instance, I attended a Burning of the King Boat ritual in Tainan County this past week. Such a ritual is only performed in coastal areas of southern Taiwan and Fujian. But is that more representative? There are other practices that are only known in the north. One thing I found interesting in Tainan County was that a lot of younger people were speaking in the Southern Min dialect, known today as Taiwanese. So, that's a noticeable difference from Taipei, where youth and the majority of adults tend to speak Mandarin. But that is also a difference between urban and rural areas. Obviously, there are certain other aspects that set Taipei apart: the influx of migrants from various areas of China (as opposed to earlier waves that came mostly from a handful of districts in two counties in one province, and the rest of Han settlers came from the adjacent province); its place as the administrative center for over a century; the greater multiplicity of international cultural trends, etc.
You might say that religious processions are more peripheral in Taipei, where passersby tend to walk out of the way, are oblivious to, or gaze on them as curiosities, as the streets are suddenly transformed by pilgrims with incense and firecrackers and the high-pitched squeal of the suona. Temple festivals strike me as much more integrated in local life the further outside Taipei (and perhaps other major cities) you get. In rural Taiwan, such festivals are a kind of glue that holds society and different communities together. That is at least one thing they do.
Then there is the political. We often hear that Taipei is blue, but that does not mean that its streets are all painted blue. Frank Hsieh did win more than 40 percent of the vote here and Chen Chu did not win by a landslide in Kaohsiung. There is plenty of green to be found in Taipei and plenty of blue to be found elsewhere.
Now, I think a big reason why Taipei is so overrepresented is that Taipei is where most reporters, tourists, and businessmen stay when they come to Taiwan. I know that the reporter who wrote that article has been living in Taipei the past year. People tend to see things from the perspective of where they are. Someone living in Taipei will tend to place more emphasis on Taipei life. Someone living elsewhere will think Taipei is less important. Well, just some thoughts. I live in Taipei and I love this city. It is Taiwan, though not all of it. It has a fascinating history that is an important part of Taiwanese history just like Manhattan is an important part of American history (See The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto, about which I have written elsewhere). For one, it was the center of the tea trade beginning in the second half of the 19th century. This played an important role in Taiwan's economic development. That's just for starters and always, there's more to the picture.
We're pushing Taipei in the Monopoly vote as much as we can here in Arizona, rallying up everyone we can in the local Taiwanese association, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sit down toilets: Ever heard about Hikers Against Doo Doo? (HADD) Organizations devoted to human waste disposal are not unheard of.
Maybe someone (in Taiwan preferably) should form some kind of group to push sit down toilets in tourist areas?
There's bound to be a great acronym in there somewhere.
But I guess one other problem is that Taipei is presented as just some random Chinese city, albeit one that escaped the Cultural Revolution, and not as the capital city of Taiwan, either as nation or as province. It is safe to speak of Taipei but provocative (for an international journalist) to speak of Taiwan. Just like that disembodied entity known as Chinese Taipei or the equally meaningless Chunghua Taipei.
ReplyDeleteMichael and wulingren, I think that it is more accurate to say that Taipei gives an incomplete picture of Taiwan, not that it is unrepresentative. I think this is what wulingren is getting at, and I have to agree.
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